1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image pickup devices mounted on video cameras, VCR-embedded cameras, or electronic still cameras, and more particularly to an image pickup device having an automatic image controlling function such as auto white balance and or automatic exposure control, and an image quality control method in an image pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image pickup devices of this type require white balance adjustment for providing stable color reproduction, exposure adjustment for obtaining an appropriate quality of exposure, and other image quality adjustment. The operator manually makes these adjustments so as to provide an optimal value in consideration of a subject and its ambience of image pickup for image pickup purposes. In many cases, an image pickup device mounted on a domestic VCR-embedded type camera has the function of auto white balance and automatic exposure control for automatically making these adjustments so that general users can easily pick up an image.
The auto white balance which is one of the automatic adjustment functions is disclosed, for example, in JP-A-63-219291 and the automatic exposure control in JP-A-56-19274.